Wellcome Trust responds to Finch Report on open access

The Wellcome Trust today responds to ‘Accessibility, Sustainability, Excellence: How to expand access to research publications’, the report of the Working Group on Expanding Access to Published Research Findings*, which was chaired by Dame Janet Finch CBE.

Sir Mark Walport, Director of the Wellcome Trust, says: "We are delighted that the Finch Report encourages the UK to embrace open access, something that we at the Wellcome Trust feel very strongly about. There is a real groundswell of opinion in support of open access in the UK, the USA, Europe and beyond and this is a real opportunity for the UK to lead the way.

"Open access is the only way to ensure that important research is made freely accessible to all. It will help drive forward innovation and breakthroughs in medical research.

"We urge publishers to adopt the so-called 'gold' open access model, where the publication costs are met by the research funder, rather than the reader, and where articles are licensed in ways which allow others to reuse these works, subject to attribution. This will need the support of all of those that fund and support research, who will need to put into place effective and flexible arrangements to meet these costs, which we anticipate being only 1-1.5 per cent of research costs."

Notes for editors

*Robert Kiley, Head of Digital Services at the Wellcome Trust, was a member of the Working Group on Expanding Access to Published Research Findings.

About the Wellcome Trust

The Wellcome Trust is a global charitable foundation dedicated to achieving extraordinary improvements in human and animal health. It supports the brightest minds in biomedical research and the medical humanities. The Trust's breadth of support includes public engagement, education and the application of research to improve health. It is independent of both political and commercial interests.